XP or Vista for an older computer

[markrb38]

I have an older computer I am going to be giving to a friend and I have a license for XP and one for Vista. Trying to decide which I should put on it.
I know XP is not supported anymore and Vista had a bad reputation, but I heard that with service packs it got respectable, but I never saw that myself.

Can't spring for 7, 8 or 10.

thanks

 

[ninaholic37]

I am curious about the specs on the machine (cpu, ram). Maybe your friend already has a preference for which one they would like if you ask them? Or maybe they will just wipe the drive and install their own OS of choice anyway?

 

[bbhaag]

What are the specs of the system? CPU and ram are important especially if you decide to go Vista.
FWIW system requirements for Vista are very similar to 7.

 

[SparkyJJO]

If the specs support it I'd go Vista without a doubt. It at least is still supported by MS for a few more years for security updates, and isn't horribly outdated.

If it only has 2GB of RAM though, while usable (I did for a while with less), Vista and 7 really need 3+GB to run smoothly.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Seriously, neither. Since I doubt your friend will be using it to play games, why not put Linux on it? Something like Linux Mint or Zorin? It's a lot like Windows, overall, as far as user-interaction goes. It's perfect for a web-browser box.

 

[Mike64]

I have an older computer I am going to be giving to a friend and I have a license for XP and one for Vista. Trying to decide which I should put on it.
I know XP is not supported anymore and Vista had a bad reputation, but I heard that with service packs it got respectable, but I never saw that myself.

Can't spring for 7, 8 or 10.

thanks

The awfulness of Vista was always overblown. And after Service Pack 2 (really, even after Service Pack 1), Vista has been just fine... Unless your friend is willing and able to deal with the potential security risks involved with using XP post-expiration, I'd seriously avoid it.

 

[Mem]

Windows wise Vista because it's still supported and has better security then XP, yes one of the many Linux distros is a good free alternative .

 

[mikeymikec]

Vista's OK if you make good use of standby/hibernate where possible/appropriate. Vista takes longer than other versions of Windows to cold start and finish settling down, that's my only problem with it.

 

[JackMDS]

The awfulness of Vista was always overblown. And after Service Pack 2 (really, even after Service Pack 1), Vista has been just fine... Unless your friend is willing and able to deal with the potential security risks involved with using XP post-expiration, I'd seriously avoid it.

This.

As for performance see this - http://www.winmatrix.com/forums/ind...-sp2-vs-xp-sp3-performance-benchmark-results/

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[corkyg]

Agree with JackMDS. Another consideration is that Vista is directly upgradeable to 8, 8.1, and 10 whereas XP is not.

 

[sm625]

Another consideration is that Vista is directly upgradeable to 8, 8.1, and 10 whereas XP is not.

That could be a reason to keep the Vista for yourself and give away the XP.

 

[markrb38]

Thanks everyone.

Vista it is as I have Win 10 for all my computers and I doubt I will ever need more than three for one guy.

 

[nemesismk2]

windows xp will be fasster but it is unsupported right now. windows vista will be unsupported in 2016. i would try to get windows 7 which is still supported longer than windows vista.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I would go with XP over Vista just because Vista is a huge pig. A computer that can run Vista will be able to run 7 even better, so really, I'd go with 7. But if you are stuck between the two choices of XP or Vista I'd go XP.

Though if you are willing to put a SSD in the system Vista may be a tad more usable. I just found Vista used to be very bad at constantly using cpu and disk. It's an OS that likes to thrash the system a lot even when idle. Even on computers that came with it, it was bloody slow.

 

[Mem]

I would go with XP over Vista just because Vista is a huge pig. A computer that can run Vista will be able to run 7 even better, so really, I'd go with 7. But if you are stuck between the two choices of XP or Vista I'd go XP.

Though if you are willing to put a SSD in the system Vista may be a tad more usable. I just found Vista used to be very bad at constantly using cpu and disk. It's an OS that likes to thrash the system a lot even when idle. Even on computers that came with it, it was bloody slow.

Complete FUD!... Nothing wrong with Vista especially after the service packs, besides why stick with XP a dead OS which is no longer supported with very poor security .

Sooner some people realize XP is DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!! ..the better.

 

[Compman55]

Vista for sure.

It is a nice OS now. It is WAY more secure than XP. And if you turn off aero it should be a little faster. It is very slow to start up however. There is little you can do to fix this.

 

[ninaholic37]

Complete FUD!... Nothing wrong with Vista especially after the service packs

My experience was similar to Red Squirrel. I think we went through this already

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2414243

And FUD implies that you didn't have negative first hand experience with Vista yourself and you are just going by the words of others. It is rather offensive to call something FUD because you're basically calling everyone liars. I highly doubt Red Squirrel just "thinks" Vista is a slow bloated pig compared to XP, this was probably a real observation in a setting where this situation actually happened.

 

[Mem]

My experience was similar to Red Squirrel. I think we went through this already

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2414243

And FUD implies that you didn't have negative first hand experience with Vista yourself and you are just going by the words of others. It is rather offensive to call something FUD because you're basically calling everyone liars. I highly doubt Red Squirrel just "thinks" Vista is a slow bloated pig compared to XP, this was probably a real observation in a setting where this situation actually happened.

I've experience with all Windows versions, in fact used Vista on day one of its release, for general use and beta games testing for various companies, unlike many of you, all the way until Win7 then 8,10 etc...

My main argument I have already stated on why not to bother with XP and if you read my first post I also did say Linux is a good alternative, however getting back to Vista it's no brainer over XP, service packs fixed many of the issues with Vista. I had Vista x64 running great back in 2007 until 2009(when 7 was released) and that was on nforce 4 ultra board with AMD 3800+ X2 CPU, I was lucky on day one(2007) since had drivers for all my hardware with Vista x64.

FUD and calling somebody a liar are two different things,we all have different hardware,usage etc...
Yes there is still a lot of FUD about Vista even today, you know this is true, I back up what I say (ie my real experience with Vista,still got my retail copy in storage)and not hear say.

Remember forums you can disagree with opinions, does not mean you are calling somebody a liar.

 

[ninaholic37]

I would do the same as you and wipe off XP and use Linux as well. One good thing about Vista over 7 is that it won't get the annoying Windows 10 updates (I think?), which might be enough for some to consider Vista the last 'untainted' OS by MS.

 

[Mem]

I would do the same as you and wipe off XP and use Linux as well. One good thing about Vista over 7 is that it won't get the annoying Windows 10 updates (I think?), which might be enough for some to consider Vista the last 'untainted' OS by MS.

It would be better if markrb38 could list the hardware specs of the computer in question,if gaming and no special Windows software is needed then Linux would be a good alternative depending on the user skill level, some users prefer Windows due to being more friendly then Linux, however Linux has improved over the decades in that department.

 

[destrekor]

I would go with XP over Vista just because Vista is a huge pig. A computer that can run Vista will be able to run 7 even better, so really, I'd go with 7. But if you are stuck between the two choices of XP or Vista I'd go XP.

Though if you are willing to put a SSD in the system Vista may be a tad more usable. I just found Vista used to be very bad at constantly using cpu and disk. It's an OS that likes to thrash the system a lot even when idle. Even on computers that came with it, it was bloody slow.

Sounds like you had a bad experience, and likely had bad drivers to blame.

Vista was the first NT 6.0 release. While Windows 10 has technically had the NT kernel version changed to NT 10.0, it is still basically the NT 6 kernel. Windows 8.1 was NT 6.3, 8 was 6.2, and 7 was 6.1.
Which is to say, Vista got the bad reputation of improperly coded drivers from manufacturers, while by the time later versions shipped, the driver teams had finally put out stable products.

Save for a few issues in the early days, I stayed on top of that issue and had a very stable OS, far, FAR more stable than XP, and it was certainly faster.

With each successive version of Windows, I have also noticed far fewer blue screens or other fatal errors due to any kind of driver conflict. I've experienced them, a mess of drivers can easily become a mess of drivers, but Windows holds up exceptionally well as of late.

 

[JimmiG]

Dual-core or better CPU, >=3GB RAM: Vista (if less than 4GB RAM, go with the 32-bit version)
Single-core CPU and/or <3GB RAM: XP

 

[Red Squirrel]

Sounds like you had a bad experience, and likely had bad drivers to blame.

Every single vista machine I've ever used has been slow. Click on something, and have to wait, and wait, and wait, go for coffee, oh, it just came up 5 times. Whether it's drivers or not, it was still slow. Open task manager, and everything is jumping like crazy hogging cpu, even sitting idle. It's just a horrible OS and is a huge pig. On a core i7 with 12GB of ram and SSD it might not be too bad, but on low end hardware it's not really a good choice of OS. Not sure how 10 compares it could be worth going with it just to do the upgrade I guess. I miss the days of Windows 2000, it was a nice clean simplified OS that was very lightweight and stable. Then XP came out. Even XP was pretty bloated for it's time. It took a few years for hardware to catch up.

 

[SparkyJJO]

I ran Vista on an old T41 with a Pentium M 1.7GHz and 1GB RAM. It was not really slower than XP ran on that system. No Aero, of course.

Yeah, 7 is certainly better/faster than Vista. Vista could use a little tweaking out of the box. Superfetch was broken in it and was the cause of most HD thrashing, turning it off helped a lot. 7's implementation was far better.

 

[MongGrel]

Vista.

The wife still uses my old X64 version on one of my old gaming computers, have upgraded the others to 10.